God Means It (#102 of 365+)

As a child I was bullied, teased, and felt the pain of rejection. Usually it would happen when I started going to a new school and didn’t have any friends yet. Sometimes it was because I had short
hair or didn’t wear the right clothes. For a couple of awkward years, between ages 8 – 10, I looked like a chubby little boy.

When I started to develop physically in my early teen years and began to look like a young woman, an adult relative took an unusual interest in me. He talked to me about sex whenever he had the opportunity to be alone with me. He told me where I could find a box of condoms in his house. He wanted me to experiment, with him, and he even tried to use bible verses to show me it was alright because we were of “the same blood”. One day he made me strip from the waist up so he could take pictures of me naked. I was just a young girl, I was scared, and I didn’t know how to get myself out of the situation. All I could think about was just getting through it.

Later I told my mother but when she confronted him he said I had either misunderstood him or had an overactive imagination. So she believed him and together they told me I had been wrong to make accusations against him. For many years afterwards I was convinced that man was going to rape me. I lived in fear and dread whenever he was around but God miraculously intervened and it never happened. A few years ago I read a brochure that said neither rape nor physical contact needs to occur for a person to be sexually abused. That was the first time I realized I was a sexual abuse survivor and the trauma I had experienced was genuine.

“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20, emphasis mine). The NASB says, “but God meant it for good”…

What if my childhood had been different? Would I have been as hungry to receive God’s unconditional love and grace during my teen years if I hadn’t been the person I was? What would my life look like today? Only God knows the answer to that. Joni said God “is a God of intention—he has a purpose, a target, a goal, and a plan… Your trials have more meaning—much more—than you realize. Your problems have more purpose than you can imagine. Not because God merely used bad things, but because God intended them so that others might be brought to Jesus through your example”.

I praise you, holy and eternal God. Words can never express how good you’ve been to me! May I never forget how you’ve watched over my life since I was in my mother’s womb. Use my story, my testimony, to save others from a painful eternity without you. In Jesus’ name. Amen.